The press release I received from Amanda Ameer includes "For more information about the contest, or to request press tickets to Spring For Music, please contact," followed by Amanda's contact info and that of another publicist. So perhaps that means I could request press tickets!

Or maybe not. What if all 529 English-languages bloggers made such a request? Stern Auditorium, the main stage at Carnegie, has a seating capacity of around 2800. I doubt they'd let 1/6 of the tickets go to members of the press. It would make an interesting experiment.

2 comments:

I'm just picturing the conversation now, between Amanda and her boss at Spring For Music:

Amanda: "Hey. Er. Is there any chance I can have some more press tickets?"

Boss: "I already gave you fifty. How many do you need?"

Amanda: "Just 470 more."

Boss: "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WITH THEM? SELLING THEM IN TIMES SQUARE?"

Amanda: "Nope. They're all for people who write enthusiastically about classical music."

Boss: "That's impossible."

Amanda: "That's what I thought, but apparently every single classical blogger in the English-speaking world has decided they'd like to come to the same concert."

Boss: "Why didn't you budget accurately for this?"

Amanda: "Well, I figured there are five times as many bloggers as music critics, so I'd need about five times as many tickets as normal. I didn't think many bloggers would fly from Australia to attend a concert."

Boss: "But then you convinced them all to come?"

Amanda: "Yes."

Boss: "All of them?"

Amanda: "Yes."

Boss: "Well, I suppose that's what we pay you for. We should give you a raise. Will they write nice things about us?"

Amanda: "Some of them. There's a good chance that a bunch will take umbrage at the way we've tried to manipulate them."

Boss: "It will be a small raise then. Why are we doing this again?"

Amanda: "Because we recognise that arts bloggers are important, so we're investing in them."

Boss: "We're showing them respect by trying to manipulate them in the same naive and transparent way we've been manipulating journalists for years?"